s though for his supper--seeing no harbor, no
world's first port, no plans for vast fleets or a great canal, none of
the big things shaping his life.

But I saw. Orders had gone out from the tower east and west and south
and north to show me every courtesy. And with a miraculous youthful ease
I understood all that I saw and heard. The details all fitted right into
the whole, or if they didn't I made them fit. Here was a splendid end to
chaos and blind wrestling with life. And feeling stronger and more sure
than ever in my life before, I set out to build my series of glory
stories about it all, laying on the color thick to reach a million pigmy
readers, grip them, pull them out of their holes, make them sit up and
rub their eyes.

For I was now a success in life! The exuberant joy of youth and success
filled the whole immense region for me. In those Fall days there was
nothing too hard to try, no queer hours too exhausting, no deep corner
too remote, in the search for my material. I saw the place from an old
fisherman's boat and from a revenue launch at night, with its
searchlight combing the waters far and wide for smugglers. I saw it from
big pilot boats that put far out to sea to meet the incoming liners. I
ate many good suppers and slept long nights on a stout jolly tug called
_The Happy_, where from my snug bunk at the stern through the open door
I could watch the stars. I went down into tunnels deep beneath the
waters. I went often to the Navy Yard. I dined many nights on
battleships, where the talk of the naval officers recalled my father's
picture of a fighting ocean world. They too talked of the Big Canal, but
in terms of war instead of peace. I went out to the coast defenses, and
with an army major I made a tour of the lights and buoys.

And perhaps more often than anywhere else, I went to a rude log cabin on
the side of a wooded hill high up on Staten Island, where lived a
Norwegian engineer. He had a cozy den up there, with book-shelves set
into the logs, two deep bunks, a few bright rugs on the rough floor,
some soft, ponderous leather chairs and a crackling little stove on
which we cooked delicious suppers. Later out on the narrow porch we
would puff lazy smoke wreaths and watch the vast valley of lights below,
from the distant twinkling arch of the Bridge to the sparkling towers of
old Coney. Down there like swarms of fire-flies were countless darting
skurrying lights, red and blue and green and white. F